Voters must rise now that Gordhan’s skulduggery has been exposed

PUBLIC Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan’s unethical attempts to privatise SAA by the back door have been exposed. Gordhan was hellbent on selling the airline to cronies, thereby undermining a norm relating to the sale of equity in stateowned companies.

The Cabinet may have sanctioned the termination of the Takatso deal, but murmurs over the secrecy surrounding it will haunt Gordhan in his retirement. The transaction exposed Gordhan’s duplicity and disregard for his duty to uphold transparency and accountability.

It is hard to disagree with those who have characterised the partnership as amateurish, ambitious and controversial, because political manoeuvrings were put before commercial interests in this deal.

An obvious red flag was the fact that, prior to the deal, SAA had gone into business rescue, unable to pay back the money it had borrowed on state guarantees. Another is that Gordhan was cagey about apprising public representatives of how the partnership had been concluded.

Clearly, President Ramaphosa was not shocked to find out there was never a substantial deal in place. Ramaphosa glaringly failed to mention SAA’s strategic deal in his recent State of the Nation Address.

It has now dawned on him that Gordhan overlooked the unsound balance sheet of a preferred equity bidder to deliver on the acquisition.

The partial due diligence and risk assessment in respect of the deal is a prima facie proof of skulduggery and cronyism behind the scenes.

All this has taken place as the ongoing drama at Eskom points to Gordhan wrongfully exercising public power with impunity.

Voters must rise on May 29 and save South Africa.

MORGAN PHAAHLA | Ekurhuleni